


Ours Is the Kingdom

by ketherphorbia



Series: The Purkinje Effect [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Hunting, Nuka World, Old Friends, Religion, Rituals, Slavery, The Nucleus, Vampires, children of atom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-12-26 18:52:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketherphorbia/pseuds/ketherphorbia
Summary: The raiders of Nuka World know Brother August as their bogeyman "Father Wachusett," in that he's like standing next to a mountain. He comes down from the Hinter to visit the park often, and until recently he simply accepted that the raiders had crammed themselves into Nuka-Town USA because they'd never spaced out. But now his favorite quarry is absent from the ecosystem, the raiders have expanded to occupy every inch of his slice of Heaven, and the power has been restored to the entire amusement park--all in a matter of months. Finding each zone of the park irreparably gentrified, he has no choice but to reclaim what he reveres as holy wilderness in the name of Atom. (Flashback chapters will be titled after Nuka-Cola flavors.)





	1. Slum Religion and Nuka-Cola

The gatorclaws had vanished. Finding only brahmiluff and gazelles in the wastes North of Nuka World, August lost all urge to hunt once he set foot South of the Northpoint Reservoir. Beguiled, the tall man-shaped creature of the cloth pressed across the barren terrain to the Safari Adventure Zone to the Northwest of the park grounds, where he knew they had nested, and still found none as he neared it. His aquiline nose flared and his pale eyes widened beneath his trim black tricorner hat, and caution informed his body’s every movement, as he stared up at the enormous looming serpentine mass of metal, then stared beyond it up at the hundred-foot treehouse within its high stone walls. Even in the clear day, he could see the lightbulbs decorating it had sprung to life.

It didn’t take risking stepping foot inside it to know that raiders now inhabited the Safari Adventure.

He hugged the wall to follow the cobbled waterway which bifurcated Nuka World. It was fever blossom season, and the dark, wild vines swathed everything it could reach in the replete cherenkov glow of its spherical flowers. Picnic areas, winding lazy streams with a network of small cobbled bridges, debris doomed to a limbo of blowing around here until rainfall and time would macerate it against the fixtures of the space by rainfall and time. Were it not for the circumstances unfurling around him, he preferred a leisurely stroll through the Nuka Island thoroughfare on his way to Market, to soak in a commune with naked Atom, but today it did not serve him to celebrate Her so passively. 

Hidden behind a large dead tree, the creature gawked all around him in every direction with a clear view of the entire park. His head spun with grief. Respectively the rocket on the sign at the Nuka-Galaxy building and the Observation Wheel, he could even at a distance see the tallest attractions in the Galactic Zone and Kiddie Kingdom now in motion for the first time in two centuries. Dread sublimated any enthusiasm remaining for this sabbatical to his holy place, and he licked at the insides of his fangs. If Safari Adventure, the Galactic Zone, and Kiddie Kingdom had become animate again, he could presume so had Dry Rock Gulch to the West and the World of Refreshment to the Northeast. The raiders had spread out from their home base in the Southernmost zone, Nuka-Town USA, and had successfully restored power to the entire park.

Nuka World’s veins flowed readily again with Atom’s pulse. He’d never seen such a place. The closest approximation was Megaton, back in the Capital Wastes, but the lights that the Megaton settlers had harvested to illuminate their fortified settlement had served a patent utility function before the Transfiguration. These lights, they clearly intended only to dazzle and entice. Aircraft lights cautioned their existence to other craft in the sky, while these lights... August certainly took caution. The breath fell from him at the thought what this place must now look like at night.

The amusement park’s parasites only felt that much more an umbrage now that its ley-lines no longer lay dormant. These raiders, who had huddled up practically hotbunked in Nuka-Town USA for the past year without so much as batting an eye once at expansion, had either been too incompetent or too unambitious to even attempt it. But now, the three uncouth, violent factions threatened to choke out the wilderness that had reclaimed these grounds. Either something major had lit the fire of urgency in Colter’s ranks, or a new player had entered the mix.

A troupe of three Pack members came across the Island, and August cut to the opposite side of the tree to wait for them to pass. The garishly bright raiders dyed their hair and painted their bodies, and crafted their armor from the attraction prizes left unearned, a mixture of stuffed animals and Nuka-Cola memorabilia. He did not attack, focused on cultivating a mental sketch of future points of interest and planning out how many return trips he would need to make to assess the severity of the invasion. Having traveled with the primary intent to hunt and return to Retreat, he’d packed far too lightly to stay for any significant duration. It unnerved him not to know whether the restoration of power had tampered with the ecosystems of each zone, but he knew for certain the presence of the raiders could guarantee an impact.

Hallmark to Nuka-Town USA, the Fizztop Grille building, a massive fifteen-story tall building in the shape of a Nuka-Cola bottle, loomed high over the fortifications which surrounded the original zone of the park. He crept inside the North gate and followed the wall to stick to the shadows. With fewer people occupying the space, it felt like everything could breathe again. Various buildings and carts here had also lit up as expected, and strings of lights chased overhead in the walkways leading West, East, and to the South. Even many of the street lights still worked, and the fountain in the trash-filled water fixture at the front of the Fizztop Grille now flowed again. A mixture of the wild Pack and the crisply-tailored Operators milled about in a previously unobserved idle contentment. They even seemed to nearly get along for once. The amusement park food trash scattering the entirety of the park grounds was most concentrated here, owing to the density of the restaurants and food carts, and August grew more mindful of his catskill-clad footwork to avoid the crunch of bicentennial styrofoam.

It crept upon the back of his skull, to notice the total absence of Disciples in the observable population. The bladethirsty clan with a fetish for polished eyeless metal masks had made themselves present in every corner of Nuka-Town USA. Had the Pack and Operators driven out the Disciples altogether, or did they now simply exclusively inhabit the other zones of the park? He recognized the polished, razor-adorned stylings signature of Disciples armor on a handful of raiders of the other two factions, and understood that the factions had not decided to begin sharing their shticks. How, in three months’ time or less, had these raiders had overthrown the Disciples, returned power to all of Nuka World, and occupied all six zones, when they’d done  _nothing_  for a year? He couldn’t unpack the mere notion of it, let alone the reason for it.

Of all the things to be familiar to him, near the colonnade that divided the Fizztop grounds from the rest of Nuka-Town USA, he spotted a woman with chin-length pale blonde hair, wearing jeans and a Nuka World T-shirt, and bright red round sunglasses in the shape of a pair of bottlecaps. At first, he thought she might be asking for directions from the Operator which harangued her, but he quickly learned from her frustration that the Operator denied her access outside Nuka-Town USA. She huffed and slouched her shoulders with balled fists and stomped off, biting her bottom lip, and he followed her to where she stood staring with a whine at the corner of a peeling yellow three-story building with an awning bedecked in patriotic bunting. He plucked a cherenkov blue Nuka-Cola Quantum from a nearby vending machine unnoticed, and slipped behind her to dangle it over one of her shoulders in offering, stooping a bit to smile endearingly over the other.

“You’ve no idea how I’ve missed your Mississippi Quantum Pie.”

She jerked and yelped at having been sneaked up on, let alone by someone of as great a stature as him. She sniffed and instinctively clutched at the bomb-shaped soda bottle with one hand while she clutched her chest with the other. He let go and she stared up at him.

“I-- August? Brother August!?” Her shrill, jubilant voice cracked. She bear hugged him around the middle, with her face mashed against his chest, and he petted her head. Muffled in his raiment, she mumbled, “Sorry I didn’t bring any--My  _god_  you had a growth spurt.”

“Quite all right. ...Somehow, I knew I’d run into you here eventually.” He gestured off to the colonnade to the South, annoyed by the sound of the Operator using the fiberglass Bottle and Cappy statue in the center of the walkway for target practice. Though, it relieved him that this also meant he had not yet been detected despite standing literally across the street from what had once been the Operators’ base of operations: The Parlor, a high end eatery with a theater. “We should go someplace... quieter, Sierra. Perhaps the parking lot. Or the Market.”

“I will not!” She let go to cross her arms with a defiant pout. “If I’m getting anywhere, I’m getting out to the other zones of the park. I didn’t come all this way to leave empty-handed! How did you get in? ...You could help me sneak out into the park, right?”

“Absolutely not.” His eyes shifted incessantly to every head on Main Street. “The locals dislike me a  _great deal_. It’s for your safety and mine that we relocate. Can we step inside this building, perhaps?”

“If only!”

Sierra looked around, then back to him to nod in agreement. August followed her closely as they walked South to the circular thoroughfare with a round building at its center. Here there existed a larger concentration of individuals in tattered rags and shock collars, and August’s ears rang. He caught the unmistakable Valkyrie-like bladed silhouette of Nisha’s helm out of the corner of his eye, and in a panic he snatched Sierra aside into the shadows and clamped a hand over her mouth. Moments after the observation, his jaw slacked to recognize the helm of the Disciples’ queen worn by anyone but.

Rather than adorned by strapped smooth-hammered curve-hugging armor, this figure wore a green jumpsuit rolled down to the waist with the sleeves tied, wrapped faded green fabric for a shirt, elbow-high black leather work gloves, and thick leather armor that looked in many places to be crafted from tool aprons. He chewed at a lit cigar through the downward-sloping spines which formed a grill over the lower half of his pink-painted face. The raider who’d won Nisha’s helm walked along with his arm across the shoulder of a ghoul wearing a beaten brown tricorner cap and a Nuka-World letter jacket.

“Man, you  _splattered_ that super mutant,” the ghoul praised with awed disgust.

“No power armor needed.” The raider reminisced, “I do kinda miss the bumper cars, though. Gotta admit it’s kinda sad just how many rides here are too hard t’repair.”

“Too late for regrets.” The ghoul stopped and draped his arms on the other’s shoulders with a heavy-lidded smolder. “Come on, I know what’ll cheer you up. Let’s celebrate your Gauntlet victory with a trip through the Nuka Galaxy.”

“ _Every time I beat the shit outta somethin’s not a good excuse for a chem break_ ,” he clamored, getting dragged along by the hand toward the North gate of the zone.

“So Colter IS out of the picture,” August uttered, at a loss.  _And Nisha, clearly_. He let go of Sierra’s mouth, and she nipped at him. “Here, the pavilion outside the Cola Cars should be secluded enough. Come sit with me.”

Once she’d taken a seat at the aluminum patio table, he joined her and tucked his hat in his lap, revealing his pointed ears, dark wild hair pulled into a low ponytail, and wiry, bushy sidewhiskers.

“I knew you’d be tall when you were a kid, but gosh.” Oblivious to most nuances of his features, she shook her head and frowned with a defiant urgency. “How long have you been here? I just arrived, and they won’t let me go  _anywhere_! It’s infuriating, really.”

“I’ve been coming here for years. It’s changed so much in the few months since my last visit. I take it you came here hoping to do more than slake your thirst?”

At the mention of a beverage, Sierra remembered her death grip on the soda and cracked into it with a bottle opener keychain at her waist, pocketing the cap. She downed a good third of it in one gulp, and she grinned with a refreshed sigh.

“Ohh, sweet Quantum, mama’s gone too long without you.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand. “I’m here to add something very special to my museum!”

“You don’t say,” he smiled, warmed as always by her passion. “I guarantee you’ll find far more than you could imagine. For example, I’m sure you know it, but there are park-exclusive flavors that only the machines here can concoct. I’ve been collecting the recipe cards to complete the book for some time, but I’ve only so far put my hands on a few.”

“Oh, I know all about The Official Nuka-World Recipe Book!” She giggled filled with energy, and downed another slug of the glowing blue drink. “Have you  _TRIED_ any of them yet! Gosh they must taste out of this world-- But no, August. Funny you should mention recipes. I know I can trust you to keep a secret.” She leaned across the table and glanced furtively over the top of those ridiculous Nuka-Cola sunglasses, lowering her voice. “I’m here for the Nuka-Cola formula.”

“Now that really would be something of a centerpiece to your museum,” he lauded thoughtfully. “But where are you expecting to find it?”

“Believe me, I came here with a plan. I know it sounds a bit like a pirate with a treasure map, but there was a contest, before the war.” She pulled out an ancient piece of colorful paper and carefully unfolded it, and turned it on the tabletop for him to see. On it danced six different Cappy’s, the bottlecap of the cap-and-bottle duo mascots for the park, and each listed cryptic hints as to where to happen upon them. “I’m sure you’ve noticed my amazingly superb Cappy Sunglasses by now. I know you notice everything--but you wouldn’t notice what these babies see unless you wore them! There are Hidden Cappy’s scattered all over Nuka World, and each one has a piece of a secret code. Can’t see them without the decoder glasses! The way the contest went, if someone could find every single one, and decipher the code, they got to meet hh--heh! John-Caleb Bradberton himself!” She got too excited to control her volume and cooled her enthusiasm a bit with the last third of the Quantum.

“Refresh my memory... That’s the man that invented Nuka-Cola?” For as much as he loved to listen to her speak with such mirth about the museum she curated in the Capital Wastes, he needed to do his best to keep her on topic.

“Of course! The one and only! I know what you’re thinking. Bradberton’s long gone, who cares about the contest anymore? Well, I’m betting he’s got the recipe in his office. There’s more to this story, and you just might like this part. I promise it’ll be worth your while. Bradberton didn’t just create soda formulas. He was a genius inventor of all kinds of fantastic things. You just might find something to your liking-- _provided we can get into his office_ ,” she sang.

“For as much as I know you’ve memorized a map of this place by heart, I don’t like the idea of you wandering around. This place is bounds more dangerous than Evergreen Mills or Paradise Falls. In case you haven’t noticed, their new Overboss was just now casually bragging about having killed a super mutant one-on-one in a cage fight.” He picked up the list of hints as to where to find the ten hidden Cappy images, and tucked it into the pocket at the hip of his left leg of Marine armor. “Let me. It seems I have to scout out the zones regardless, so I might as well help an old friend achieve one of her wildest dreams at the same time.”

She snort-giggled in glee and put the glasses on him, and clapped her hands in delight.

“Dashing! Ohhhh, August, I’m the happiest girl in the Wasteland. I couldn’t have gotten luckier, running into you. It’ll be a snap for you!”

“In exchange for me doing this for you, you have to promise me you won’t leave Nuka-Town. There’s plenty to eat and drink here, and they let paying customers sleep in the Market. I know you didn’t come here for simple memorabilia, but it couldn’t hurt to look around. Maybe even spend some time in the Nuka-Cade, if you’re feeling especially ambitious?”

Sierra sat up straight with her hands folded neatly in her lap, and nodded.

“I’ll stay put. I promise.”

“Thank you.” He smiled and stood, putting his cap back on. “There aren’t any Nuka-Mixer Stations in Nuka-Town, but I’ll see if I can’t bring you back a few Nuka World exclusive flavors. I’m going to come back and check on you so often, all right?”

She squealed, but put her hand over her own mouth this time when he flinched.

“There’s plenty in Nuka-Town to keep me occupied. I’ll let you get back to what you came here for. What  _did_  you come for? Couldn’t resist the thirst-quenching power of Nuka-Cola?”

“Thirst has something to do with it, I’ll say that much.” He mussed her hair. “Perhaps it’s serendipity to run into an old friend.”

“I couldn’t agree more!”

He pocketed the sunglasses once he was out of her line of sight, and he sighed with worry as he slipped into the round, boarded up building at the center of the thoroughfare.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback chapter.

Five Years Ago

Brother August sat cross-legged in the wooden floor of the medic’s quarters, a pale young man working over a variety of glass vessels at his arm’s reach. The medic, an older woman with tawny silvering hair, worked with her back to him at an ancient prewar metal desk, equal parts apothecary and chemistry lab. His wiry, dark hair spilled from the ribbon which pulled it back loosely. In the filtered chartreuse glow of the myriad of cryptic glassware filled with dyed-cherenkov fluids, his superior could not see his unsteady hands, but she could hear every trembling junction of glass to glass, no matter how he tried. He set down his stir rod and his beaker of a dark substance, and cleared his throat to break the almost-quiet.

“Archemist, could I ask you something?”

From beneath the surgical mask, her rasping, strained voice served to bestill him, and she turned to lay kind eyes upon him.

“I’m unsure I’m the best source of counsel in this tumultuous time, but you have my eyes and ears, my child.”

He crossed his hands in his lap and pursed his lips.

“In the wake of Brother Andrew’s execution, do you think the Children will think ill of anyone who leaves?” August jammed his tongue into the furrow between two upper teeth and lolled his eyes to the wood-plank ceiling a moment. “I can’t remain here. My faith is unshaken, I swear it. Yet, I can’t shake the worry that I am abandoning what has been allotted me in life. That I am abandoning you and the others.”

The Archemist furrowed shut her failing eyes and shied from comment a moment.

“You have not told anyone else you plan to leave, I trust.” She glanced off out into the submarine hangar within which the commune had built its shelter and sanctum. “By the Division, tell me you don’t side with Confessor Martin in all this.”

“I do not profess to understand what has led Martin astray, but I assure you that do not follow in his stead. I wholly endorse the unity of cause which Conf– High Confessor Tektus leads the Children. For the Harbormen to have enacted such an unprovoked and gruesome act of violence against one of the most peaceful among us, it’s unfathomable, and unforgivable. I would understand if it had been me they felled.” August did not give her room to object to the comment. “It’s clear to me they will never see Atom’s holy glow, never see their world-souls unfurl. But… it’s clear to me also that I cannot be the agent of the High Confessor’s will. I cannot protect this family. My composure is failing, sister.”

A smile dulled her eyes into a squint, but she scarce could look at him directly. As she spoke, he rose, and slowly approached her.

“We are losing our most enthusiastic cook in this. An obeisant, diligent sibling. A skilled chemist. For how you handle a gun, I still wish you’d take the role of a Zealot, but I ramble… brother, Atom has bestowed upon us a homestead in this holy land, and He provides us all we have here. You are just as much a part of the collective blessings as anyone else here, and we will feel your absence just as we feel M– Forgive me, you do not leave forsaking your faith. The comparison is unjust.”

The tall man looked to her expectantly, and placed an endearing hand to her shoulder.

“But I do leave to retain my faith. What Atom requires of me, I cannot stay here.” His grip tightened on her shoulder, then loosened. “I suppose it really was not so much a question as it was a deference. I’ve owed so much to you in my time in Far Harbor. We all have. You are the only one I’ve told. I have not sought counsel from the High Confessor, for I know in his resolution that he’d find a way to keep me here.”

“If you leave by Atom’s accord, then why do you believe the High Confessor will not understand you? Did Atom come to you? Or the Mother?”

“Atom has made my task clear and bright as the sun. But I cannot ask this family to afford me.” His pale eyes grew wild. “Children will die if I stay.”

“You’ve handled the transition from the Harbor to the Nucleus about as well as I have.” She placed her calming hand atop his, but did not mention that he still trembled. “What Atom requires of me is to stay here and tend His Children. In the mounting tension, the Church needs me here now more than ever. But to hear your confidence that Atom calls you elsewhere at such a time… You intend to go into the Fog, then?”

“I do not know what I intend.” August stepped back and looked out over the dry-docked submarine in the middle of the hangar, its aft lined with candles. “You’ve noticed… changes in me since we came to the Nucleus? What kind of changes?”

“You have always isolated yourself, been most private with your worship. But you no longer pray alongside the rest of us, except when the High Confessor leads us. Either you’ve grown more pious, or more guilty.”

When August tried to skirt around the Archemist to exit, she cut him off and cornered him on the balcony of her dwelling. He shied from her stern insistence.

“August, I’ve forgiven your theft throughout these past two years. I know it is some sign of illness. If it is an illness like my own, it is not my place to question what wickedness might have branded you with it. That’s between you and Atom to sort out. Yet, I feel I deserve to know why you always take blood packs, and not Stimpaks, if this has to do with your health.”

He stood frozen for some time before he lunged into a passionate, desperate hug.

“This is not what I meant to transpire from speaking with you.”

“It was exactly what you meant to transpire.” The Archemist failed to suppress a coughing fit, and she pushed him away. “Please… just be truthful and fair with me. I deserve that much.”

“…The Trappers… are heathens with the appetite of Atom but no understanding of it, no guidance through faith…” The words futilely spilled from him, his heart constricting in his chest. “Atom has given me all that I have. And I have… that appetite. Had it since I was a boy. As I’ve cultivated it, it’s expanded my capacity for Atom’s glow by such a margin that I doubt a metric can any longer quantify it. I can’t keep stealing from you, sister. Especially not now, when you will likely need medical supplies the most. Most of all, I fear what might happen if there weren’t blood packs  _to_  take–”

He swallowed hard and stiffened his posture, and flinched in the expectation of her scrutiny. When she did not lay a hand on him or say a word, he opened one eye and observed a woman locked in anguish.

“You are right. You cannot remain here.” The Archemist removed the mask to expose her radium-eroded jaw and throat to him. Her eyes grew wet. “How could I have never put together the symptoms? The Fog seizes unbelievers and forces them to act on its will. Do you truly believe in your heart of hearts that it is your right as a Child of Atom to act as the will of the Fog? To perform the basest of the functions which the Fog allots anyone but Atom’s chosen? It protects us by turning unbelievers upon themselves–yet you seek to stand in their shoes and act in their stead.”

Her scrutiny welcomed back his certainty.

“Atom has chosen me for this. It is my duty to cultivate my world-vessel to the fullest that I can, and this is the way that Atom has told me I must do so.” He approached her again, but she shied from him, and he stood down. “I am taking the next possible opportunity to leave, and I will trouble none of you further. I know it has been a trying dialogue. I cannot steal from, especially you now that you’ve told me you know it. Can I… beseech you for one last pack of blood? I came here to help you prepare scouring materials, but also to take my last meal before I go.”

The Archemist smiled through her tears, and shook her head.

“You are most unwell, my child.” She did not stand by her body language, however, and retrieved one plastic bag from the cabinetry of the desk at which she’d worked. She held it out to him, but glared at him and did not relent it. “Have the decency to take it somewhere no one will see what I have permitted.”

August took it only once she was convinced her words had shaken him, and he nodded in gratitude before leaving without another word. He tucked the blood pack beneath his thin, dark, humble robes, and as he readied himself to depart in the next few hours, he concealed it clutching it to his breast with the limb Atom had bestowed upon him in his teen years. There it remained as he knelt prostrate facing the submarine, and prayed in its shelter, for the last time. For strength, resolution, and composure.

Leaving all rations save the one specifically for himself, he took nothing save his apron of knives, his lever-action rifle, and whatever fistfuls of dried herbs he could stow in the one piece of Marine armor he owned. Once everyone was asleep, he stood in the decontamination arches of the atrium hall and wore a haunted snarl he scoured himself of the essence of Atom of the Nucleus he contained. Dampened by his penitence, he stepped out into the cool night courtyard air to exit through the gate formed by drums stacked high. As expected, Grand Zealot Richter stood watch outside, and stopped him before he got to the gate.

“What business do you have outside the hangar this late, brother?”

The concentric sigil of Atom on the Grand Zealot’s face radiated from his right eye and obfuscated most of his features save his dark, rusty beard and salt-hardened gaze. August could not remember if he had ever seen Richter remove his full suit of emblazoned Marine armor, and he did not turn to face Richter.

“I seek the Mother. Please. It is urgent, and I am sleepless for it.”

“You take your rifle on sabbatical?”

“Please. Do not contest me. This is between me and Atom only.”

“State your intent, or risk concern of heresy. Be mindful of the climate, August.”

“In this exact moment, I have only the intent to follow in the Fog. I must commune with Atom directly in this. In this, I will find all answers I seek.”

“Do not let me regret it,” came a gruff reluctance at last, and a benign authority. “May she guide you in His glow.”

August turned to face him one last time, just long enough to meet eyes.

“Atom keep you, Grand Zealot.”

“And you as well.”

August crossed the narrow dock across the waters which surrounded the Nucleus, and traveled up the rocky terrain to the face of the hillock from which Atom’s Spring poured, a glowing, uranium gold in the moonlight. He knelt at length, permitting that it pour over his head and down his body, warmed by baptism anew in the glow of Atom which the waters imbued. Then he bowed down and drank by the palmful until the aura of the Fog overtook him, heavy, metallic, and overwhelming.

And where it guided, he walked.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is there any news about the park that doesn't upset August?

August slammed the door shut once inside the Nuka-Town Market, and he stood in tacit assertion of his presence. It only took eye contact with two Operators standing guard on the scaffolded awnings in the middle of the circular unpaved area, before all six raiders on guard duty made themselves scarce. With tired displeasure, he walked up to the chem bar and sat. The dusty-haired older man, enslaved to man the bar, stiffened with a wide-eyed frown, and he nearly pulled at the shock collar in the same fashion one might a shirt collar.

“Father Wachusett,” the man uttered, almost hoarsely. “What a sight for sore eyes. It’s been months! What... what’s eating you?”

“Forgive me for being away so long. I made a trip to Burlington, and I got caught up in some things.” As the barkeep slid over a bottle of red wine, August ignored the nickname the raiders had given him and which the slaves had subsequently taken to using for him, and he smiled in on himself. He filled a shot glass from a waist pocket to help himself, then returned the bottle itself along with a fistful of various prewar money. “Thank you, Maddox. My friend, with everything that’s changed, I’m relieved to see you’re still in one piece. That you all are.” He enunciated to the whole Market without turning to them, then grew hushed after he downed the oblation. “By Atom everything’s changed.”

“For the better, I’ll swear it. By the sound of it, you know we’re under  _new management_? The guy’s a doll compared to Colter. Decreed anybody that beats a slave gets beat twice as bad. By him. And that a body’s gotta pay for slave favors. I’m not the only one especially glad for that part. And I’m sure you noticed the Disciples are out of the picture. No more splattered guts to clean up, just because somebody got a little too excited.”

“These are all wonderful things to hear, but has anyone come to you all and discussed the removal of those collars yet?” He glanced over to Mackenzie, the blonde over at the medical table, who shied from his sight at first before standing firm and frowning at him. “I didn’t think so.”

“It  _could_  be better,” Shelbie agreed shakily, from the general goods kiosk between Maddox and Mackenzie. The young brunette made triply certain it was just August and the slaves present before continuing. “Don’t get me wrong, this is heaven compared to how it was before. But the collars... I think they feel like we’d all leave or kill them--or both--if they let us out of them. They wouldn’t even need the shock collars if they’d just treat us right.”

“Many of us have lived here longer than anywhere else,” interjected Aaron, the balding old man at the weapons kiosk. “Many of us are disinclined to leave, even despite the tenants we have to share the park with.”

“I just wish it were more than myself working toward a solution. This place was so peaceful before they came. I think we all miss the time before Colter.”

“I think they’re really starting to take strides in the right direction,” Maddox continued. “The Geek’s boyfriend keeps my kiosk absolutely rolling in caps. Never had such an extensive stock since this past month! Sure, I wish they’d let me go back to working in the Cappy Cafe, but I can respect the outfit’s reliance on my chemistry savvy.”

“Is anyone else experiencing similar prosperity?” August stirred to make the rounds, pocketing his glass. “Shelbie, I can imagine you’ve got a surplus of Disciples gear to profit from for some time. And Mackenzie? Can you spare a few blood packs?” He slouched to glare at her in desperation. “ _I’m ravenous_.”

“I, I, I, absolutely.” The medic hated that look more than anything else about him, and it took her a moment to recover from being on the receiving end of it. She had to remind herself that, being what he was, he likely couldn’t help but intimidate, even when expressing humility. She fumbled the folding lid of the pale blue medical cooler, and pulled two of them out for him. Before she could even quote a price, he gifted her fifteen caps and twenty dollars, and she nodded graciously, adding it to her till. “Will you need any Stimpaks? I haven’t had the chance to get a new batch this week, and I was about to get to it this afternoon, since Katelyn’s caravan was in this morning and brought in a large shipment of antiseptics.”

“She’s left again already? That’s no good.” August glanced over to the brahmin pen, which did not contain the pack brahmin the caravan head used to travel. He paused, slicing open the neck of a blood bag with his folding razor, and sucking on its contents, unashamed around this group accustomed to his habituation. “No, I like that the least of what I’ve learned so far. I know the partnership she has with Shank. This won’t do.”

“Said she was drummin’ up business outside the immediate area,” Shelbie said, standing up straight as she shuffled the items on her tables expectantly. “Called prospective customers traveling here  _fresh meat_. Made me shiver something fierce, the way she said it.”

“I should never have told the Geek about the power plant.” Chip, the repairman, kicked at the rocky sand, but calmed himself by rubbing at his peppery beard with both palms. “This is all my fault. All I wanted was for somebody to get the plant running again, when the raiders won’t let me step foot outside the park unsupervised...”

“--To hell you’d ever think a guy like that’d play into a scheme this big,” Aaron hollered, furious at the self-deprecation. “This is all Gage’s doing, and you know it. The man practically brags at how skillful a puppeteer he is. And now this place is a neon attraction in the desert, luring in the gullible and travel-weary. If it weren’t for how the new Overboss is, I’d think this was all a plot to expand their slave numbers, not profit from travelers.”

“Aaron, Aaron. My friend,” August soothed. “You don’t have any of the Disciples’ knives for me, do you? Call it abject restlessness, but I’m most enthusiastic to make myself the disciple they should be worrying about.”

“Most of them don’t stand a chance against you, Father,” the old man insisted, unfolding a rag of various tools that had been filed down into have a sharp end. The Child of Atom bared a fanged grin as he plucked up what had the heft of a hatchet but the motion of a machete. Turning it over in his hands, the spine had been a combination wrench, and to it had been bolted a thick, sturdy rectangle of sheet metal that had likely belonged to one of the Galactic Zone’s robots. The blade had been recently sharpened by Aaron himself, but the blood stains had not been polished out. The last of August’s money spilled out on the rag. “Especially not wielding...  _that_.”

“I’ve had enough of forgiving their trespasses. This is a holy place, and they have done nothing but defile it. This is a place for all, not simply all with the caps to save themselves from the raiders’ scorn. I wish I’d been able to do more before now. You all have suffered long enough.”

“We’re hardly suffering at all now,” Maddox promised, trying to get August’s attention back. When approached, the man stared up at him and drummed at the bar counter, changing his tune. “You’re at your best with a little Calmex to bring out the instincts of everything you’ve got in your veins, Father. I’ve got a theory for improving on the formula, but there’s a little problem.”

“You make stellar Calmex,” he replied in a lyric, still caught up in the delirium between a recent meal and a new blade. “What’s halted you in your new formulations?”

“I need bloodworm meat. From what I understand, none of the Operators out at Dry Rock Gulch have so much as mentioned seeing one since the Geek gave them the all-clear to move in.”

The man-shaped creature flattened his lips together, and his ears rang as they folded against his head. His eyes widened, and he shook his head with jaw clenched.

“I suppose I know which zone I’m starting my tour with, then.”


End file.
